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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460924">Why Should We Hide from Anyone?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushkinevitch/pseuds/pushkinevitch'>pushkinevitch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Arguing, Communication, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Ineffable Idiots, Jealousy, Love, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Star-crossed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:49:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushkinevitch/pseuds/pushkinevitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley gets jealous of his own reflection.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinAmour/gifts">FinAmour</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My first fic! Please be gentle. I had to write it because I was up late reading FinAmour's Az/Crowley fics and now I can't stop scratching the jealous!Crowley itch. Maybe more chapters as I am inspired :)</p><p>Title from Age of Kings by the Mountain Goats.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aziraphale had work to do.</p><p>Well, he says “work.” The more accurate term would be “heavenly obligations,” as they were the very purpose of his existence and he wasn’t getting paid for them, and there was the promise of severe punishment from God for shirking his duties to indulge in pleasure instead. But today—not different from most days, though it <em>felt </em>different, the heat and severity of it—he could not take his hands off his prized collection, sequestered deeply between the densely packed shelves at the back corner of his bookshop.</p><p>This was not entirely truthful, either, though running his hands over the words and feeling the impressions of the ink—though of course he could not actually feel it—did give him a certain forbidden thrill that only compared to the feeling when he—</p><p>“Mr. Fell?”</p><p>The intrusion of a human voice upon his thoughts makes him jump, though it was Aziraphale himself that had hired him to help with the bookshop. Not that he… it didn’t matter. The <em>bookkeeping. </em>It was about the bookkeeping. “Hm?”</p><p>“Mr. Fell, are prophetic collections considered fiction or nonfiction?”</p><p><em>Oh, just stick them anywhere. </em>In truth he had only hired him because he—“Nonfiction.”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>Why did he feel sick? He had eaten a great deal of cake in an extraordinarily short period of time. But that couldn’t be it.</p><p>Here’s how it went: the ineffable hierarchy, or the most important bits of it:</p><p>God. Lucifer. God’s favorite angels (of whom Aziraphale was not particularly jealous, as he considered them all quite pompous and were now floundering, even by Aziraphale’s standards, as far as heavenly obligations go.)(Ok, perhaps he was a bit resentful, if only because they were so… so… in respect to…)</p><p>(demons.)</p><p>(This was the safest term—one cannot even trust the sanctity of their own mind, as an angel.) Then lesser angels (Aziraphale) which were on par with the more powerful demons (demon), as far as the divine pattern went. Which brings him to—</p><p>“There’s a human in your shop,” Crowley said on the first day that he walked into the bookshop expecting their usual haven and finding another human in his chair. He crinkled his nose at him. “And he smells funny.”</p><p>
  <em>“Crowley.”</em>
</p><p>“Doesn’t matter, lesser life form, can’t hear me unless I want him to… I don’t think.” Crowley waved his hand lazily in front of the human’s face, not even bothering to look. The human actually did look at bit offended, though not completely sure why, as if incapable of understanding why there was a reptile in his workplace to begin with, and how it could possibly make him feel bad about himself. “And ugly as sin, too. What, is six thousand years not good enough for you?”</p><p>
  <em>Ugly? But he looks exactly—</em>
</p><p>“You know, it’s a dirty trick, inviting me over for tea while you have other company when you know full well—”</p><p>“I didn’t invite you!”</p><p>Crowley waves that off, too. “Details.”</p><p>“You can’t just… we’re natural enemies, you know! A human—”</p><p>“I don’t want to hear about the virtues of spending time with humans from an angel that sins casually on the side!”</p><p>Aziraphale takes a half-step back, stung, a bit. He averts his eyes to the floor.</p><p>“B-but… but I—I like that. I mean. The sinning. It’s practically your best bit.”</p><p>Aziraphale glances up at him. “Practically?”</p><p>“Don’t push it,” says Crowley, refraining from espousing on all the ways in which Aziraphale is incomprehensibly, ineffably wonderful. Because he really didn’t deserve such a thing, keeping humans and kittens in his bookshop and who knows what other foul things that weren’t Crowley, which wasn’t fair, because if he were to dote upon Aziraphale it should only be while properly rewarding him, in a bed, with his hand around his cock, but six thousand years and Crowley had not seen any evidence that Aziraphale owned a bed, and by God, he was looking.</p><p>Crowley looked at the human, making it so that he noticed him properly. “Go away,” he said, not quite meaning it to sound like he considered him a lesser life form, because he did find humans almost endearing, really, as they were what made his job so interesting, but all the same—</p><p>“I can hear you thinking,” said Aziraphale softly.</p><p>“Then stop. Hearing me thinking,” said Crowley, although he didn’t mean it.</p><p>And then things were awkward, and they didn’t know why, and after Crowley walked out of the bookshop that day he did not return, not even after Aziraphale finally caved and called, though he did hang up after the first ring both times.</p><p>So Aziraphale had no <em>choice </em>but to call upon the lesser-Crowley, as he did not think of him. But even now it was beginning to bother him, because the lesser-Crowley did not to the things that greater-Crowley would do, at least not in quite the same way, because it was a lesser way, and even when Aziraphale imagined him he could not get him quite right, not his voice or his affect or his attitude, only almost, and Aziraphale blamed it on the fact that he was an angel, and then he blamed it on his not knowing Crowley after all.</p><p>Perhaps he was only fit for human contact. Which was starting to depress him.</p><p>Why did he leave?</p><p>“Mr. Fell, sir?”</p><p>Aziraphale jumped again.</p><p>Now—just the thought of something even slightly similar to this happening set Crowley’s insides on fire, which he knew was a bit not good, not to mention stupid, the six thousand years considered. But perhaps Aziraphale did not want to see him, if he was hanging around with his humans, and everything, and it’s not like he wasn’t perfectly capable of coming round and knocking on his door, which he wished would happen probably quite a bit more often than he sh—</p><p>A knock at his door. Oh, Jesus, it <em>was </em>happening. He didn’t just feel alive again, he felt like a marathon runner, and he hadn’t even realized he hadn’t felt <em>not </em>alive until—</p><p>“I have. An entire. <em>Library,” </em>said Aziraphale in his slightly pompous way, with his curly hair and the top buttons of his stupid expensive shirt undone. “For you. Even the ones that aren’t—” He halts, as if it pains him to say—“are. And… you see that. And you know that. And the first… well, first, you don’t say anything at all. Then you… then you’ve got to point out every flaw in the collection—which <em>aren’t flaws, </em>by the way, they’re features—and then you… after we… <em>I’m allowed to have a human!”</em></p><p>“I dunno,” says Crowley in his lazy drawl, “I thought maybe you just liked… books.”</p><p>“Of course I like books!”</p><p>“Right,” Crowley says, pinching his lip. “Brilliant. ‘Likes books.’ Not like I haven’t known that since the invention of the stone tablet.”</p><p>“That’s—what’s that got to do with anything?!”</p><p>“Az, it’s been—I could’ve been completely discorporated—practically <em>was, </em>for all you know—and you were content to be locked up in a bookshop with some foul-smelling—!”</p><p>“He smells <em>FINE!” </em>Though since Crowley had said it he had noticed that he did smell a bit funny.</p><p>“You haven’t got a care in the world!” said Crowley, doing that thing where his mouth talks before he can form thoughts, because he’s known since Before Christ that Aziraphale is the biggest worrywart on the face of the planet. “The universe could fall apart, and as long as it didn’t fuss up the little simulacra in your bookshop—”</p><p>“Well I’m sorry if I can’t do things like you, but that little ‘simulacra’ is the only place in the universe where I’m safe!”</p><p>And then they both stop, a bit surprised by what has passed between them.</p><p>“If—if you haven’t noticed, it’s Hell out there!”</p><p>“…I’ve noticed.” Crowley looks around at his houseplants. “I’m… I’m responsible, really. My side, at least. You must feel good about that.”</p><p>“Crowley…”</p><p>“I know you don’t.”</p><p>Aziraphale, exasperated, blusters around a bit with his hands. “What are you <em>doing, </em>anyway?”</p><p>Certainly not the sensible thing. Certainly not what he’s supposed to be doing, certainly not the right thing to do. But why does Aziraphale get to… get to…? “I guess I was… just still. Holding out hope. For. You know.” Crowley tugs nervously on his ear, unable to look at the man in his door. Why was he at his door. “Alpha Centauri.”</p><p>Aziraphale realizes in that moment that he wants to kiss Crowley very much, although apparently he has been realizing it with increasing ferocity ever since the day they met.</p><p>(And, for all the talk of vague saunters—between Crowley and God, he knows he was expelled from Heaven for the ferocity of his desire to devour a stubborn-mouthed angel that did not even know he existed.)</p><p>(Oh, he is having a little trouble breathing. Don’t think about that.)</p><p>“Crowley…” says Aziraphale, taking a hesitant step inside and finally closing the door behind him, “Crowley, I hired Micah <em>because…”</em></p><p>Crowley throws up his hands in exasperation. “I don’t want to hear it!” He runs his hands agitatedly through his hair. “It’s not about ‘Micah’ it’s all of them! That one before, who made the souffles, ‘Clara’—”</p><p>“But—”</p><p><em>“It makes me sick! </em>I don’t want to think about it! And don’t think I don’t… putting, putting <em>my face… </em>on… on… that...”</p><p>Aziraphale could not control his smirk, nor the way his right eyebrow arched up his forehead, and it made Crowley’s stomach churn worse than anything.</p><p>“Maybe you think it’s funny! Hm?! Here <em>I </em>am, thinking I’m never going to see you again, while you’re… you’re just… you’re…” He puts on a high-pitched voice that doesn’t sound like Aziraphale at all, “‘oh, but the apocalypse is coming, Crowley, considering how the first one went, don’t you think you should care’—<em>NO!”</em></p><p>Ok, now he was getting a little concerned. “Crowley, my dear, really, don’t you think you’re getting a little—”</p><p>“Absolutely not! <em>You’re </em>‘getting a little!’ Maybe I never <em>was </em>going to see you again, does that even <em>matter?</em> Who do you think you are—?” Suddenly he is close enough to Aziraphale to poke him in the chest, so he pokes him quite forcefully in the chest, and God, if touching him doesn’t—“—waltzing about like it’s all said and done, on <em>your </em>virtuous heavenly terms, which cannot be questioned, closed book, because God forbid—”</p><p>
  <em>“Crowley!”</em>
</p><p>And before Crowley can say <em>“WHAT?!” </em>Aziraphale has taken his face in both his hands and brought their mouths together.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Six thousand years.</p><p>Six thousand years, and he wants to cry, because even as he has it he feels as though he cannot have it, and it’s going to be ripped away from him at any moment, and he should return to his work because he can’t have it, <em>he can’t have it…</em></p><p><em>“Shhhh,”</em> whispers the angel, pressing kisses up along his demon’s jaw, <em>“I can hear you thinking.”</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crowley kept shaking.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What am I thinking, then?” challenges Crowley, murmuring his question into Aziraphale’s skin. He wraps his long fingers around Aziraphale’s pale wrists and pulls them away from his face, though he does not draw back, enjoying the warmth of Aziraphale’s mouth more than he knows he is allowed to. “Hm?”</p><p>Aziraphale’s hands twitch in Crowley’s grasp. It is he who retreats from the kiss to look Crowley in his impossibly strange yellow eyes. Crowley looks away. “You’re terribly confused,” says Aziraphale, kindly. “You’re thinking a demon has no right to be with an angel, and you ought to punish yourself, which is ludicrous, by the way. And now you’re thinking that’s not what you’re thinking.” Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hands and turned his back to him, his ears turning pink. “You’re thinking I only want you for the length of the kiss, which is wrong, and only for the fleeting pleasure of kissing—incorrect, also. You’re thinking you’ve got other obligations that would be significantly disrupted were you to break such a significant rule, and that you’ll surely be caught, and it’s stupid and selfish—I’m thinking that too. Are you thinking that it doesn’t matter and you don’t care, like me? Surely, God… never mind. After all this time, Crowley. You seem to think that I am simply going to disappear, which I can’t, and that to satisfy my want for you, I will replace you with a myriad of creatures which take your heavenly shape, which I won’t.”</p><p>“Which you <em>have,” </em>pouted Crowley, who was so frustrated with Aziraphale he was shaking. How dare he, how <em>dare—</em></p><p>“Oh, dear. And now you’re frustrated with the presumptions I’ve made about your insecurities, despite the fact—”</p><p>“Shut <em>up!”</em> Crowley crossed the room to be with his houseplants. He crossed his arms to control the trembling, which did not work. Instead, the involuntary shivers moved inward, his core twitching with such ferocity that he grits his teeth to bite back an infuriated growl.</p><p>“The truth is, Crowley, I <em>wish </em>you were disposable. I <em>wish </em>the replacements worked. I <em>wish </em>I could disappear. Sometimes, I do.”</p><p><em>Not helping, </em>thought Crowley.</p><p>“But they don’t. Look at me,” he said, a tremble in his voice that was almost a laugh, but suffused with sadness, “really look. I know I’m terrifically stupid, but I… I wouldn’t even be here if I…”</p><p>Crowley kept shaking.</p><p>“Oh, darling, sit down.”</p><p>“Won’t help,” Crowley told the window. Oh how weak he was in this pathetic, traitorous vessel.</p><p>“What <em>will </em>help?”</p><p>
  <em>Bed.</em>
</p><p>“Let’s lie down.”</p><p>
  <em>Lying down with Aziraphale…</em>
</p><p>Aziraphale’s warm arm wrapped around him, and Crowley tensed more, not having noticed his approach. But Aziraphale nudged him, just a bit, with his nose, and turned him slowly, like they were dancing, and led them down the short hall to Crowley’s bedroom, which was small and sparely decorated. Most of the space was occupied by his luxurious bed, unmade, as  Crowley had no visitors, no one to impress.</p><p>“Come on, then,” said Aziraphale, matter-of-fact, scooping Crowley up briefly from under his thighs and depositing him on top of the covers. Aziraphale stood at the bed’s edge, leaning over, supporting himself with his hands on the mattress just above Crowley’s shoulders, eyes wandering over the worried lines of Crowley’s anxious face. “Should I—?”</p><p>“Get in.” The words, a struggle to rip from his throat, came out like an order.</p><p>Suppressing a smirk, Aziraphale lowered himself carefully next to Crowley, using his wings to assist him so he wouldn’t—</p><p>“On top of me. Get on top of me.”</p><p>Now Aziraphale’s heart quickened its pace. But he did as Crowley requested, first finding a comfortable position and then letting his weight settle heavily onto Crowley’s shaking body.</p><p>Crowley let out a long, steady sigh through his nose, his eyes closing as he buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck, his limbs wrapping around him like an octopus.</p><p><em>“This is a dream,” </em>murmured Crowley, and he licked Aziraphale’s skin just to taste him.</p><p>“N-n-no…”</p><p>“Yes it is. In a few minutes I’m going to wake up to the radio scolding me for not working hard enough. Then you’ll call and tell me you’ve just discovered Yelp and everyone hates your bookshop. Then I’ll ask if you want lunch, and you’ll say you’ve got an important meeting with all the angels in heaven, and I better not show my demonic face or… or… or you’ll at the very least pretend not to know me…”</p><p>And now Crowley was sucking on his neck. The shaking had subsided—a bit—the occasional tremor ran through his body at the end of each sentence—but with his mouth at his pulse like that—Aziraphale’s mind drifted to their kiss in the doorway, the heat of Crowley’s mouth… how terribly he’d wanted him, all this time… <em>and Crowley did too… </em>“Er… uh… what’s Yelp?”</p><p>With an exasperated growl, Crowley tossed his head back on the pillow. “That’s not the <em>point, </em>angel!”</p><p><em>Do return to kissing me again, </em>thought Aziraphale, hoping Crowley would read his mind as Aziraphale read his. The spot where he’d been sucking, slick with spit, was cooling uncomfortably now it was exposed to open air. Aziraphale arched his neck a little, proffering himself, but Crowley either did not notice or did not care.</p><p>Aziraphale cleared his throat, hoping his arousal was not obvious—or perhaps hoping the opposite. Crowley was squeezing him with his legs, pulling him—“Well, what do you want me to do? Cancel on Heaven?”</p><p>Crowley groaned. And then Aziraphale noticed something else: he was almost crying. “I don’t want to <em>hear </em>about Heaven,” moaned Crowley. “I don’t want to hear about Heaven or what’s wrong with me or what’s wrong with you or what you think I think. If everything’s awful I don’t see why we can’t at least have a nice time when we’re together, it’s a <em>temptation </em>because it feels so <em>nice, </em>angel, why have you got to be so…? Unless I’m not looking, in which case—!”</p><p>Aziraphale did not know what to do so he gently rocked the length of his body against Crowley’s, to make him feel good, right there in that moment, and Crowley shivered and moaned and bucked into him and pulled him tighter to himself. “Like that…” he said, but it came out choked and high-pitched.</p><p>“I’m… I’m…” said Aziraphale, but he did not know what he was.</p><p>And then Crowley kissed him, taking Aziraphale’s plump lower lip between his own, and Aziraphale gave a satisfied little hum, as he did so like to be kissed and so hated expressing his need for it.</p><p>But Crowley was crying.</p><p>“Crowley…”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Crowley barked, releasing Aziraphale’s back so he could wipe his eyes with the palm of his hand. “It’s nothing. It happens all the time.”</p><p>“About… about me?”</p><p>“About no one. I’m just happy you’re here, that’s all.” Aziraphale stared at him. “Shut up. You weren’t supposed to see.”</p><p>Aziraphale brushed his nose against Crowley’s nose, and Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and turned away with a strangled sob. He was shaking again, and he clung to the angel like a life raft.</p><p>“Crowley, you can talk to me. <em>What?”</em></p><p>Crowley shifted, indicating that he’d like to turn over, and Aziraphale, taking the hint, moved so they were on their sides, his chest pressed to Crowley’s back, top leg thrown over Crowley’s thigh, Crowley’s face hidden from him. Aziraphale pressed a hesitant kiss to the base of Crowley’s neck, beneath his hairline, then wrapped his arms around Crowley’s torso and pulled him close.</p><p>“I can understand why you’d lie,” Crowley finally says, and though Aziraphale cannot see him he can tell from the shakes and hiccups in his voice that he is really crying now, so he does not interrupt him, as much as he wishes to. “Because… because you want—<em>something—</em>and you’re already—breaking the rules—to have it so you can—break the rules in my direction—a demon…” <em>What an idiot I am, </em>Crowley thought. “—and it’ll all work out because it doesn’t matter if—it doesn’t matter if I… and you can want it and want it and want it, because it doesn’t mean anything, because for <em>demons… </em>you’re not a <em>demon…” </em>He says demon like it’s a swear word, “and <em>naturally </em>you’d—berate yourself for… <em>naturally </em>you’d—hate yourself for… for the sin of… and it doesn’t matter, cause you’re an angel and I’m <em>me…”</em></p><p>Aziraphale ran his hand through Crowley’s hair.</p><p>“And if you didn’t lie, then it’d be over, and that’d be—terrible—and I know you want me—us—to—to do our—best and be—<em>happy…”</em> <em>I’m so stupid I’m so stupid I’m so stupid, </em>Crowley thought. “But eventually… eventually you’re going to run out of time, or you’re going to <em>die, </em>and I’m not going to be able to… I’ll never… I never…”</p><p>Crowley turned and buried his face in Aziraphale’s chest. <em>“I want you,” </em>he said, and then he was inconsolable.</p><p>Aziraphale rubbed Crowley’s back, feeling guilty.</p><p>Ok, so he had not read <em>all </em>of his thoughts.</p><p>Six thousand years, though, and he was an angel, he would think—</p><p>Why couldn’t his bookshop be a solution? What’s wrong with that? Why couldn’t Crowley—?</p><p><em>Because it’s a lie, </em>says the honest part of himself. <em>Because there’s no reason to trust that it is not a lie. Decades of pointless work, to not be enough, for nothing. Sink everything into that and he’d discorporate himself. No, Crowley, I can’t meet you for lunch. How could he have faith in that?</em></p><p>“I’m sorry I’m not enough for you,” said Crowley.</p><p>“No!” said Aziraphale, horrified. “No.” Since when did demons feel so guilty?</p><p>“I’m sorry for <em>myself,” </em>Crowley corrected, voice still watery, though at least he had stopped crying. “I’ve been trying, I’m trying to be better, to be different…”</p><p>When did Aziraphale insinuate Crowley needed to be better and different?! “Crowley, <em>please—”</em></p><p>“It’s just not possible. And… and now I’ve… I’ve gone and ruined everything again… the one thing I can have, I should just <em>enjoy</em>, and instead I… I…”</p><p>“I’m happy you told me, Crowley. I like when you tell me things.”</p><p>Crowley, trembling again, pressed his ear to Aziraphale’s chest and listened to his heartbeat for a few long moments. “I tell you everything. If this were cards, I’d be screwed.”</p><p>“Well, let’s be thankful we’re not playing cards, then.” Aziraphale kissed the top of Crowley’s head and did not pull away, surprising himself with how easy it was to get lost in Crowley’s scent.</p><p>“That’s not funny. I can’t read your mind. When is a cake not a cake? When Aziraphale is trying to drive Crowley out of his mind. Because the second I say it’s not a cake, you’ve got a cake. And <em>don’t </em>say it’s my fault, there’s been other times, you know there have.”</p><p>Aziraphale sighed. “It’s… complicated.”</p><p>Crowley pulled his head away from Aziraphale’s chest, expression indignant. “That’s <em>it?” </em>The shakes stop on the offensive.<em> “</em>‘It’s <em>complicated?’”</em></p><p>“It is!”</p><p>“Two years not talking to me after employing multiple doppelgängers in your bookshop, you come over and kiss me, I pour my fucking heart out, and… ‘it’s complicated?!’”</p><p>
  <em>“What do you want me to do?”</em>
</p><p>“Hell—I’m not going to ask! I’m not going to tell you what I… fantasize about. <em>Read my mind, </em>if you’re so clever! But I’ll tell you this, since you haven’t seemed to have noticed—I’d take anything. I’d take less than lunch. And that’s what I’ve got… maybe that’s why I’ve got it. Maybe that’s what I deserve. But I’d rather suffer the indignity of being treated like a dog under the table than lose my best friend.”</p><p>“Crowley…”</p><p><em>“IT’S FINE! </em>But when I show you my stomach, and you kick me, because ‘those are the rules in Heaven…’”</p><p>Aziraphale looks like he’s the one that’s been kicked.</p><p>“What do you <em>want, </em>Aziraphale?”</p><p>Aziraphale shifts so his knee slips between Crowley’s legs, and both their breaths catch. Their eyes meet, but Aziraphale looks hastily away, focusing on Crowley’s mouth, instead. He reaches up and runs his thumb along Crowley’s lower lip, glances quickly to his eyes, then back down again, expression like a naughty child toeing the line of temptation. He knows he should not turn away, as he always does. He knows that this argument with Crowley—that the sight of Crowley, the heat of him pressed up against him in bed—will torment him, keep him from working until it is addressed. Even if it’s addressed. He knows that he keeps himself from what he wants because he feels he does not deserve it, despite knowing he’s prolonging the inevitable, despite feeling that he <em>must </em>do the right thing, whatever—</p><p>Oh, fuck it.</p><p>“Can I kiss you?”</p>
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